It's been well over a year since I last wrote in this blog.
I love to write and thought that starting this blog a year ago when my transition back to NYC was pretty rough would help me to organize my thoughts and feelings - while at the same time feel a sense that others might read it and we might connect on some level that we don't fully understand. Some level that technology and globalization brings us that we have yet to put into words in a way that can fully capture the connectedness of humanity.
Or some such bullshit.
Now I'm back and for a similar reason. I've been living in NYC for roughly 3 years, with a 6-month absence when I moved back home to California to be with my mom after she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I had been studying abroad for the summer in Colombia and thinking that life couldn't be sweeter, when I got a call from my dad saying that my mother had multiple tumors, malignent, and it had spread - I better come home quick. I was there the next day. The doctors gave her 11 months - she died 11 weeks later. With my brother holding one hand and myself the other. We whispered comforting things into her ear as we squeezed her hands, brushed her hair from her face, and watched. There was a moment when she was gone and we were still there and that fact seemed so impossible and the knowledge of what our lives had become, absent of the woman who loved us most, so huge and so incomprehensible that we stood in silence. My brother then walked outside. Screamed. Screamed so loud from the bottom of his tattered soul that I rushed outside and held him tight while he cried and screamed, cried and screamed, fists clenched, muscles so tight it was like he was made of stone, staring at the sky and at the house and at me like he didn't have any idea what to do next. The only thing left to do was let our hearts keep breaking - crumbling into the soles of our feet.
It is at this point that I went pretty numb to the world for about 4 months. I apologize to my family who had to deal with me in this state - I wasn't much help to them emotionally as I could barely handle what was happening to me. I really am sorry.
I couldn't have possibly written about this a year ago when I started this blog (the rough transition mentioned above). The wound was too fresh and I would sob myself to sleep so often that it became normal.
I remember dating a boy shortly after moving back. Dating was still a pretty new concept to me and I had met him on OKCupid. A red-headed, beautifully bearded plummer, born and raised in Brooklyn. He was interesting and complicated. Kind of an asshole but with the potential to be the opposite. I couldn't share any of these precious, fragile emotions with him. He'd been broken-hearted and this caused him to be closed off emotionally. I didn't know how to handle this so I broke off the relationship within a few months. Having dated several broken men since, I realize we all have broken pieces because we've all lived. We aren't 18, clean and untouched. We've loved and lost and tried and failed and jumped, dived, crashed, burned.
This didn't go where I thought it was going to.
I've never told anyone about my mother's last moments. Always wanted to, never could. Now here they are. For anyone to read. And it feels good.
I think that's why I wanted to start this again. Type what I can't say. Articulate the things that I have trouble verbalizing. My mind works best in writing. I should have been born in that era when letter writing was an important and time-consuming part of everyday life - capable of sustaining long-distance relationships. You know, like in all those Jane Austen novels. I'd Pride & Prejudice my way into Mr. Darcy's castle so fast! Well, no, not so fast cuz it took a really long time for letters to get places. Then you have to wait for a response. And you know he would have written and re-written that thing at least 6 times - you can easily do that with a text message but hand-written letters, forget about it. Then, if he spilled the ink bottle all over it, the whole thing is fucked. Then one of his servants has to make a day-trip to town to buy him another bottle - which is not cheap! - and then he has to start again. Except he can't that day because the Duchess of Windchestshire Abbey is visiting and you know how she can be. And then, when I finally get his letter, he uses "there" when he means to use "they're" and I lose interest completely.
So, I'll just write here instead. This is the conclusion.
- Adrienne
I love to write and thought that starting this blog a year ago when my transition back to NYC was pretty rough would help me to organize my thoughts and feelings - while at the same time feel a sense that others might read it and we might connect on some level that we don't fully understand. Some level that technology and globalization brings us that we have yet to put into words in a way that can fully capture the connectedness of humanity.
Or some such bullshit.
Now I'm back and for a similar reason. I've been living in NYC for roughly 3 years, with a 6-month absence when I moved back home to California to be with my mom after she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I had been studying abroad for the summer in Colombia and thinking that life couldn't be sweeter, when I got a call from my dad saying that my mother had multiple tumors, malignent, and it had spread - I better come home quick. I was there the next day. The doctors gave her 11 months - she died 11 weeks later. With my brother holding one hand and myself the other. We whispered comforting things into her ear as we squeezed her hands, brushed her hair from her face, and watched. There was a moment when she was gone and we were still there and that fact seemed so impossible and the knowledge of what our lives had become, absent of the woman who loved us most, so huge and so incomprehensible that we stood in silence. My brother then walked outside. Screamed. Screamed so loud from the bottom of his tattered soul that I rushed outside and held him tight while he cried and screamed, cried and screamed, fists clenched, muscles so tight it was like he was made of stone, staring at the sky and at the house and at me like he didn't have any idea what to do next. The only thing left to do was let our hearts keep breaking - crumbling into the soles of our feet.
It is at this point that I went pretty numb to the world for about 4 months. I apologize to my family who had to deal with me in this state - I wasn't much help to them emotionally as I could barely handle what was happening to me. I really am sorry.
I couldn't have possibly written about this a year ago when I started this blog (the rough transition mentioned above). The wound was too fresh and I would sob myself to sleep so often that it became normal.
I remember dating a boy shortly after moving back. Dating was still a pretty new concept to me and I had met him on OKCupid. A red-headed, beautifully bearded plummer, born and raised in Brooklyn. He was interesting and complicated. Kind of an asshole but with the potential to be the opposite. I couldn't share any of these precious, fragile emotions with him. He'd been broken-hearted and this caused him to be closed off emotionally. I didn't know how to handle this so I broke off the relationship within a few months. Having dated several broken men since, I realize we all have broken pieces because we've all lived. We aren't 18, clean and untouched. We've loved and lost and tried and failed and jumped, dived, crashed, burned.
This didn't go where I thought it was going to.
I've never told anyone about my mother's last moments. Always wanted to, never could. Now here they are. For anyone to read. And it feels good.
I think that's why I wanted to start this again. Type what I can't say. Articulate the things that I have trouble verbalizing. My mind works best in writing. I should have been born in that era when letter writing was an important and time-consuming part of everyday life - capable of sustaining long-distance relationships. You know, like in all those Jane Austen novels. I'd Pride & Prejudice my way into Mr. Darcy's castle so fast! Well, no, not so fast cuz it took a really long time for letters to get places. Then you have to wait for a response. And you know he would have written and re-written that thing at least 6 times - you can easily do that with a text message but hand-written letters, forget about it. Then, if he spilled the ink bottle all over it, the whole thing is fucked. Then one of his servants has to make a day-trip to town to buy him another bottle - which is not cheap! - and then he has to start again. Except he can't that day because the Duchess of Windchestshire Abbey is visiting and you know how she can be. And then, when I finally get his letter, he uses "there" when he means to use "they're" and I lose interest completely.
So, I'll just write here instead. This is the conclusion.
- Adrienne
